Several protests are planned in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in coming days.
By Suryatapa Chakraborty
Staff Writer
Gov. Greg Abbott said in an X post on Tuesday that the Texas National Guard will be deployed to multiple locations ahead of planned protests across the state.
“Peaceful protest is legal,” Abbott wrote in the post. “Harming a person or property is illegal & will lead to arrest.”
City of Dallas officials said Wednesday they had not yet heard about a National Guard presence in Dallas, which has a protest set for downtown on Saturday.
“According to our management, they are monitoring the situation,” council member Paula Blackmon said.
The Dallas Police Department and Texas Military Department directed The Dallas Morning News’ queries about the deployment of the Texas National Guard to the governor’s office.
This announcement comes ahead of the planned No Kings protests on June 14 across the state as a part of a nationwide movement in response to a military parade planned for the same day in Washington, D.C.
In a statement provided to The News, Andrew Mahaleris, the governor’s press secretary, said the soldiers will be on standby in areas where mass demonstrations are planned. He said anyone engaging in acts of violence or property damage will be held accountable to the full extent of the law.
“Peaceful protests are part of the fabric of our nation, but Texas will not tolerate the lawlessness we have seen in Los Angeles,” Mahaleris said.
In downtown Los Angeles, protests against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids began June 6. The Trump administration initially deployed 2,000 National Guard soldiers and then announced an additional 2,000.
The administration also sent U.S. Marines to the area, following days of unrest.
To show support for Los Angeles residents, about 400 protesters in Dallas gathered Monday evening at the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. The demonstration began at 7 p.m. and Dallas police confronted the protesters when the crowd took to the streets.
One person was taken into custody and is accused of assaulting a police officer at the protest, according to an arrest-warrant affidavit. He was booked into the Dallas County jail.
On the same day, a similar protest took place in Austin that resulted in more than a dozen protesters being arrested.
Abbott told The Dallas Morning News Wednesday that there would be no need for President Donald Trump to activate the National Guard or send the Marines to Texas to quell an uprising.
“What I think is more appropriate is for Texas law enforcement and Texas National Guard to step up and do their duty, so that they would not have a need to send the Marines here,” Abbott said. “There’s going to be a large number of protests … some of them will be large enough that we need to make sure that local law enforcement have the resources and capabilities they need.”
Abbott said later during a bill signing in the Capitol that he would not disclose the exact tactics or the number of people being deployed.
The planned No Kings protests are scheduled to take place in Dallas, Frisco, McKinney, Denton, Arlington, Fort Worth, Flower Mound and several other locations across the state on Saturday, according to the No Kings website.
Staff writers Devyani Chhetri, Karen Brooks Harper and Gromer Jeffers Jr. contributed to this report. Brooks Harper and Jeffers Jr. reported from Austin.
Suryatapa Chakraborty is a Breaking News Intern at The Dallas Morning News. She graduated in 2025 from Boston University with a master’s degree in journalism. She has previously completed internships at the Boston Globe Media and the Cape Cod Times.
This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.
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